https://guardian.ng/news/posers-on-buharis-security-success/
THE GUARDIAN
• Nweze: How over-invoicing, lack of transparency make nation unsafe
• ‘No price too high to pay for political stability’
• Retired deputy IGP justifies anti-terrorism funding
• Insecurity worse under current administration, CISLAC insists
Perceived gap between result and President Muhammadu Buhari’s $1 billion spending on anti-terrorism war is drawing shocked reactions from stakeholders, who insist the country is not any safer today than it was at any time in its history.
Experts, who admit military hardware are expensive all over the world, are not as concerned about the huge spending as they are about the results from government’s efforts.
Buhari had revealed that his government spent $1 billion to acquire weapons to carry out sustained operations against insurgents since 2015. He said through military operations, Nigeria has been able to reclaim territories seized by Boko Haram.
“When I assumed power in 2015, Boko Haram held about two-thirds of Borno State, half of Yobe State, and a couple of Local Council Areas in Adamawa State, all in the North East of Nigeria. We have been able to retrieve these swathes of territories by investing over $1 billion to acquire hard and software weaponry from the U.S. and other friendly countries to carry out sustained operations against insurgency since 2015.
“Our Armed Forces and those of our partners in the Multinational Joint Task Force (consisting of Chad, Niger, Cameroun, Benin Republic and Nigeria) continue to demonstrate great bravery while paying the ultimate price in securing our collective freedom,” the President said on Tuesday, at the African Conference for Peace in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Military spending has ballooned in recent years amid escalation of insurgency and terrorist attacks. This year, for instance, defence is taking as much as 13.4 per cent or N2.98 trillion of entire spending, leaving little for critical drivers of growth, such as health and education.
The defence budget is more than twice what is earmarked for infrastructure (N1.4 trillion) and close to double of the health sector’s N1.5 trillion allocation.
Whereas experts have acknowledged the need to scale up security to protect life and property, there are concerns that the unbalanced spread of the country’s resources across critical sectors would create another social insecurity that could worsen the outlook.
Speaking with The Guardian, Dr. Austin Nweze, a resource management expert at the Lagos Business School, said the security situation is fallout of the neglect of critical areas of the economy in the past.
Nweze recalled long neglect of military spending since the return to democracy in 1999 and observed that the government is merely filling the gap. While there was an illusion of peace after years of military misadventure in politics, he noted, there was also a deliberate effort to weaken military formations.
“The funding of the military is very key. The Boko Haram, initially, overpowered the military because they were not well equipped. But some weapons were brought in at some point,” he said.
He, however, said over-invoicing and lack of transparency are some of the downsides of recent military budgets. These, he said, may have created a gap between spending plan and results. That Nigerians rarely have an idea of the condition of weapons in the arsenal at any point has also complicated the issue.
